The union contract, which covers 34,000 working members and 20,000 retirees, expires December 15. It covers bus drivers, subway operators and conductors, station agents, signal maintainers, cleaners, skilled trades persons and others. The first bargaining session was held five days before the rally.

The transit workers are fighting around three issues: health-care benefits, wage increases, and dignity on the job. The union-administered Health Benefit Fund is $30 million in the hole due to lack of payments by the MTA, a state agency.

Underfunding by the MTA has resulted in increased out-of-pocket costs for the workers. On April 24 more than 5,000 transit workers rallied outside MTA headquarters in Manhattan to defend their health-care benefits.

Some 1,500 TWU Local 100 members who are covered by a different contract conducted a successful seven-week strike last spring over health care coverage. They are bus drivers and mechanics for three private bus lines that operate in Queens.

New York city and state officials and capitalist politicians have raised the prospect of increasing the subway and bus fares, supposedly as a way to help meet expenses toward the Health Benefit Fund. The TWU is part of the "Save the Fare" coalition, which opposes any fare increase.

Local 100 is demanding that wages be brought up to the rates paid by Metro North and the Long Island Railroad, the main commuter rail lines in the area. Subway operators, for example, earn $6 an hour less than their counterparts at Metro North and the LIRR.

At a news conference before the first negotiations session, Local 100 president Roger Toussaint described the "plantation mentality" of supervisors on the job, where workers are subject to numerous disciplinary measures and abusive treatment.

Mervin Gray, a mechanic at the Jackie Gleason MTA facility, said in an interview, "Health benefits, decent wages, retirement and life time benefits are most important to me. The union needs to do some more work in the organization of its members and getting larger numbers to participate in this fight."

Following the September 25 rally, Isaac Krinsky, a train conductor, said, "It was an excellent turnout and sent a strong message to the MTA. We are stronger now, more unified than before."  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home